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So much has been made of Lena Dunham's penchant for flaunting her less-than-perfect body on the HBO series she writes, directs, and stars in, that it's been easy to overlook how the other girls of Girls bucked the repressive Hollywood standard of beauty too. During the first season, Girls co-stars Jemima Kirke and Allison Williams played what can, in TV parlance, be described as the hot and pretty friends, and indeed they were hot and pretty — but in a refreshingly normal way. That is to say, neither was particularly skinny that first season — certainly not Hollywood skinny. Trim, yes, but their bellies were noticeably soft, their hips curvy and faces full. Like so many of us, they'd look luscious in bikinis, like women who enjoyed brunch and weren't cultish about spinning. And yet they were no less attractive or desirable: Kirke as the sexually adventurous, bohemian femme fatale with "a face like Brigitte Bardot and an ass like Rihanna," so tempting she breaks up a marriage; and Williams as the uptight career gal with the classically patrician face and curves, who attracts a hot young artist at his own art show.
This realism was a departure from the standard template of a sexually desirable woman we're used to seeing on TV and film in recent years: typically modelesque things with cut arms, a smooth hip line, and flat abs. Today, most sitcom actresses have the kind of fantasy figures that in real life require hours at the gym: Cheryl Hines as a hard-bodied cougar on Suburgatory, Krysten Ritter's willowy vixen in Don't Trust the B—- In Apartment 23, Sofia Vergara as an impossibly buoyant trophy wife in Modern Family. (Even Vergara's theoretically less-glamorous Modern Family foil is the astonishingly toned Julie Bowen.) There are exceptions, of course, among them Kat Dennings on Two Broke Girls and Mindy Kaling on The Mindy Project, but neither character spends much time unclothed or rolling around in the sack. That isn't the case on Girls, where sexually explicit, skin-baring hookups are frequent and much like in life, having a stick-thin body is secondary to attitude and style.
It's a testament to the show, then, that during the first episode of the second season, Dunham doesn't let Williams get away with her real-life weight loss — she looks very Hollywood now — without comment. In a scene between Williams's Marnie and her mother (played by Rita Wilson), her mother tells her that she looks "30 years old." "I miss the softness in your face," she tells her. "All you girls think that you look really good, but you just look like floats in the Macy's parade — these big heads on these tiny bodies." And over the next few episodes, Marnie's problems only seem to get worse as she starts to rely more on her looks than her smarts to make a living.
But it's unsettling to see one of the most unseemly aspects of the entertainment business encroach upon the cast of Girls so quickly, and so visibly, if only because the show seemed such an aggressively defiant fuck-you to how women (and leading ladies) are expected to act and look on screen. While it's never surprising when an actress loses weight once she lands a hit show — we've seen this play out time and again, from Valerie Harper on the Mary Tyler Moore Show to Jennifer Aniston on Friends — it's a slippery slope when a popular series succumbs to Hollywood's baser pressures. Think of how quickly Roseanne degenerated once she gussied up; or how Elaine Benes lost her Everygirl neuroses once she starting using product to smooth her frizzy hair. Authenticity matters when authenticity is a crucial part of the story line, which has been the case for Girls, a show that prides itself in getting the details right, down to the "gross underwear" real women find themselves wearing during "goofy," "awkward" sex scenes.
Since there is a different standard in movies than there is on the small screen, some of the thinning out that happens to TV stars is inevitable. Historically, television has been a presumed launch pad for a bigger career in movies. But for the cast of Girls, some of this pressure seems self-imposed. Kirke, who started shooting the series six weeks after giving birth, alluded to as much in an interview with Vulture last year: "I mean, I've considered [losing weight]. Obviously I've been like, 'Maybe? I'm on TV. Allison Williams is looking really skinny and Lena's, like, lost a ton of weight, and Zosia's always, like, tiny. Maybe I should.' And then I'm just like 'I love eating with my family and I love eating Reese's at night and watching American Idol.' I can't." But then Kirke, who was roped into the show by childhood friend Dunham, has also said that she does not want to be an actress long-term.
Attractive women have always had a place on television but the extreme hottiefication of comedy's leading ladies only intensified when Friends debuted in 1994 with a cast of attractive twentysomethings portrayed in an aspirational light. Friends was a ratings blockbuster, and its ability to capture the elusive 18-to-49-year-old demographic that advertisers coveted made it a particularly lucrative cash cow. In an effort to re-create that magic, network executives greenlit a number of forgettable sitcoms with good-looking casts, and the drive for programs that feature young attractive cast members continues to this day. (Remember Brooke Shields as the suddenly single magazine writer on Suddenly Susan, or Lea Thompson as boyfriend-less cartoonist in Caroline in the City?) In the meantime, as the Friends stars grew more famous and opportunities to star in movies increased, so too did the pressure on its female cast members to look good. During interviews for my book We Killed: the Rise of Women In American Comedy, Marta Kauffman, the co-creator of Friends, said, "I think that the pressure that women who are in the limelight feel is enormous, and looking a certain way becomes a priority for them. No one ever said to these women, you have to be skinny. But I think when you go into a dressing room twice a week and try on clothes that you are going to wear in front of the camera, and you have to walk a red carpet and your picture is constantly being taken, it's going to become a priority." And Lisa Kudrow concurred: "There's still a pressure to be as attractive as you possibly can. And, you know, it's not from outside, it's inside too. They start feeding into each other. You see yourself on TV and it's, like, 'Wow, I really should lose; I really should be ten pounds underweight if I can manage it.'"
In her memoir Bossypants, Tina Fey — who famously lost 30 pounds before getting her star turn as co-anchor on Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update" and now glams it up regularly on the red carpet and on the covers of glossies — argues that "we should leave people alone about their weight. Being skinny for a while (provided you actually eat food and don't take pills or smoke to get there) is a perfectly fine pasttime. Everyone should try it once, like a super-short haircut or dating a white guy." She gives us her "remembrances of being very, very skinny," running three miles a day, six days a week and "lov[ing] it when people told me I was getting too thin." It's clear that Fey doesn't put too much stock in Hollywood standards of beauty but she does play along. After her remembrances of being skinny, Fey offers remembrances of being "a little bit fat," yet another "natural phase of life and nothing to be ashamed of." It's a juxtaposition that also plays out on 30 Rock, as the objectively attractive Liz Lemon gets kicked around for being dowdy. The jokes are entirely out of character but as Fey got more famous and glamorized, some fans, fair or not, found it harder to take her self-deprecating slights.
Could the transformation of Girls from fleshy Williamsburg hipsters to glammed-out A-listers mark the beginning of the end, the moment when the rest of us stop believing that these girls echo, to paraphrase Hannah, the voices of their generation? Not that Dunham & Co. need to look schlubby, of course, but there is something particularly un-Everywoman about actresses we see on red carpets wearing Prada and Oscar de la Renta, as Dunham and Williams did to the Emmys last year. So far Dunham has managed to stay true to her mission and the first few episodes of the new season, which premieres Sunday on HBO, are fantastic. But it's hard to imagine that once the magazine covers roll in, and then the movie offers, that we won't soon see our girls get Simonized by the Hollywood machine.
Now, with all the fanfare surrounding Girls' second season debut this Sunday, Dunham and her co-stars are having their cake — let's just hope they keep eating it, too.


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The Washington Nationals have released a coupon code "for Teddy's fans" good for half-price outfield tickets to games this Friday or Saturday night vs. the Milwaukee Brewers, and for select future games vs. the New York Mets, Florida Marlins, and Pittsburgh Pirates.
The online code gets you half-price tickets in the outfield corners ($17 to $18), outfield mezzanine ($14 to $15), outfield reserved ($11 to $12), or outfield gallery ($8 to $9). You must order at Nationals.com using Coupon Code "TEDDY26".
The code may also be used for half price tickets for the April 26-27 games vs. the New York Mets, the May 13-14 games vs. the Florida Marlins, and the May 16-17 games vs. the Pittsburgh Pirates,
As always, 400 Grandstand-level seats (Section 401/402) will also be available for $5.00 each at the gate before the game. No coupon required for those.


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The perfect forum to keep track of projects connected to your historical and 'real world' models from your Assyrian Army through to the Airbus A380
Use this control to limit the display of threads to those newer than the specified time frame.
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David Eagleman on the Brain and the Law
Posted by The Situationist Staff on May 31, 2011
From theRSAorg:
Dr David Eagleman considers some questions relating to law and neuroscience, challenging long-held assumptions in criminality and punishment and predicting a radical new future for the legal system.
[Eagleman's examples in the first 15 minutes will strike long-term readers of The Situationist as non-novel. For others, that portion of the video may be a useful primer to neurolaw.]
Related Situationist Posts:
- Dan Dennett at Harvard Law on "Free Will, Responsibility, and the Brain"
- "Interview with Professor Joshua Greene,"
- "Daniel Dennett on the Situation of our Brain,"
- "Dan Dennett on our Interior Situation,"
- "Bargh and Baumeister and the Free Will Debate,"
- "Bargh and Baumeister and the Free Will Debate – Part II,"
- "The Death of Free Will and the Rise of Cheating,"
- "Clarence Darrow on the Situation of Crime and Criminals,"
- "Person X Situation X System Dynamics," "Situation" Trumps "Disposition" – Part I & Part II,"
- "The (Unconscious) Situation of our Consciousness – Part I, Part II, Part III, & Part IV" and
- "Coalition of the Will-less."
One Response to "David Eagleman on the Brain and the Law"
August 11, 2011 at 11:04 pm
[…] David Eagleman on the Brain and the Law […]


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Mozilla has launched Firefox 5, a new version of the popular open source Web browser. This is the first update that Mozilla has issued since adopting a new release management strategy that has drastically shortened the Firefox development cycle.
Mozilla introduced its ambitious 2011 roadmap in February, with a plan for delivering four major releases during the year. A draft of the new release management strategy was unveiled in March, before Firefox 4 was released. As we pointed out at the time, the new approach is a radical departure from how Firefox has traditionally been developed: Mozilla has historically issued only one major release a year.
Despite the significant challenge of increasing the Firefox release cadence, Mozilla has successfully delivered Firefox 5 to users a mere three months after the release of Firefox 4. The new version is unsurprisingly light on user-facing changes due to the shortened cycle, but has some decent improvements under the hood. It also proved to be fairly robust during our tests, which suggests that the browser's quality hasn't suffered from the transition to the new release management strategy.
The most significant improvement in Firefox 5 is the addition of support for CSS animations, an experimental CSS3 feature that allows Web developers to do keyframe-style animation on CSS properties. Because the underlying standard hasn't been finalized yet, Mozilla's implementation uses the
-moz browser vendor prefix.
Another noticeable change is that the checkbox for toggling the Do Not Track (DNT) header has been moved to the Privacy tab of the browser's preference dialog. Mozilla introduced the option for enabling the DNT header in Firefox 4 even though the header was recognized by virtually no advertisers at the time. That proved to be a sound move and has helped accelerate adoption among advertisers and other browser vendors.
Now that the header is starting to gain industry acceptance, Mozilla is making Firefox's DNT checkbox more discoverable by moving it from the Advanced tab of the preferences dialog to the Privacy tab. The DNT option has also been added to the Android version of Firefox, which was released concurrently with the new desktop version.
Aside from these minor user interface changes and new features, Firefox 5 brings a number of bugfixes and performance improvements that will improve the browsing experience.
Although the changes in Firefox 5 don't seem like much, they illustrate some of the advantages of a shorter development cycle. Mozilla will be able to roll out support for emerging Web standards at a faster pace, making it easier for Web developers to take advantage of the latest and greatest capabilities that the Web has to offer. It will also shorten the time window for rolling out optimizations and other similar enhancements that directly benefit regular end users.
One downside of the shorter development cycles is that third-party developers have a lot less time to update their Firefox add-ons for compatibility. We tested a bunch of popular add-ons with version 5 and didn't haven much trouble.
Mozilla is already hard at work on Firefox 6, the next update on the roadmap. The new version is expected to bring back WebSockets and add support for Server-Sent Events and the HTML progress element. We are really hoping to see full multiprocess browsing in Firefox 7 later this year, but it's not clear yet if that will happen.
Users can obtain Firefox 5 by running a browser update or downloading the new version from the Mozilla website. For additional details, you can refer to the official release announcement.
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Previous Lesson
Complete and Continue
Iceland Planning Made Easy
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Take the Icelandic Pledge
How to decide where and when to travel (8:52)
Daylight hours
Spring in Iceland (weather, daylight hours, pros + cons) (5:21)
Summer in Iceland (weather, daylight hours, pros + cons) (8:43)
Autumn in Iceland (weather, daylight hours, pros + cons) (7:25)
Winter in Iceland (weather, daylight hours, pros + cons) (8:01)
Top 10 must see things in Iceland
Best place in Iceland for...
Quick tips + facts about Iceland
COVID rules and regulations
Regions of Iceland
Reykjavik (20:30)
Golden Circle (21:11)
South Coast (26:21)
West + Snaefelsnes Peninsula (19:13)
East Iceland + Fjords (20:01)
North Iceland (30:15)
Ring Road (26:36)
Westfjords (23:17)
Highlands (29:15)
Reykjanes Peninsula (15:26)
Planning Basics
Month by month planning checklist
Suggested Itineraries
Sample Itinerary - 7 days Ring Road
Flights - how where and when to book (5:04)
Accommodation - types and searching resources (12:56)
Renting a vehicle - Everything you need to know (15:08)
Other Transportation Options
Tours + Excursions
Health + Travel Insurance
Trip prep
How long it takes to get places (5:21)
Money - cash or card? (9:27)
Average prices for food, drink, accommodation, transportation
Keflavik airport info
How to avoid jet lag
Wifi + Electricity + Calling (13:07)
Hot springs + Blue Lagoon
Packing tips (15:34)
Packing list
IN Iceland
Travel Etiquette (15:36)
Gas stations + pump use
Food + Drink
Road signs
Driving rules in Iceland
Speed limit + cameras
F-roads, 1-lane bridges, tunnels, tolls (14:17)
Animals + Wildlife
Money saving tips
Souvenirs + VAT information (11:02)
Speaking Icelandic
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Swipe Maps
How to copy the Google maps
Reykjavik Map
South/Golden Circle Map
East Iceland Map
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West/Snaefellsnes Map
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Westman Islands Map
Golden Circle EXTENDED Map
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Northern Lights viewing locations
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How to set a countdown timer for your trip (4:34)
Camear gear + photo tips + drone info (6:18)
How to see the Northern Lights
Helpful Websites
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About Iceland
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text: Building Schools winners announced A Leicester school has scooped the top prize at the annual Building Schools for the Future (BSF) awards. Sign into your account today and access the content on offer Already a Subscriber? Email address Password Stay signed in Trouble signing in? Reset password: Click here Email: firstname.lastname@example.com Call: 01452 835820 Not a Subscriber? If you haven't got a subscription you can do one of the following options: Subscribe Free Trial Signed in but can't access this content? You may be seeing this message because you haven't got a global subscription.Find out more about why you might be seeing this message or request your access to be upgraded here


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Today's News: Our Take - Barbara Walters Has Chickenpox, Remains Hospitalized
Barbara Walters has been in the hospital for more than a week after she fell and hit her head during pre-Inauguration festivities in Washington, D.C. - and now the View co-host has contracted the chickenpox.
While doctors were monitoring Walters after her fall, they noticed her fever was not subsiding and eventually determined that it was due to chickenpox, according to The Associated Press.
See Sarah Hyland and other stars who don't look their age
One of Walters' View colleagues, Whoopi Goldberg, had firm instructions for the 83-year-old on Monday.
"No scratching!" Goldberg said on The View. "We love you, we miss you. We just don't want to hug you."
Walters has been transferred to a New York hospital, but has been told to rest and is not allowed any visitors, according to Goldberg.Watch Goldberg's announcement below:
View original Barbara Walters Has Chickenpox, Remains Hospitalized at TVGuide.com
Other Links From TVGuide.com


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Calif. schools prepare for transgender rights law
SAN FRANCISCO - With a law that spells out the rights of transgender students in grades K-12 set to take effect in California, school districts are reviewing locker room layouts, scheduling sensitivity training for coaches, assessing who will sleep where during overnight field trips and reconsidering senior portrait dress codes.
But administrators, counselors, teachers and school board members also are watching and waiting. The law, the nation's first requiring public schools to let children use sex-segregated facilities and participate in the gender-specific activities of their choice, could end up suspended within days of its Jan. 1 launch if a referendum to repeal it qualifies for the November ballot.
To obtain a public vote on the law, passed by the legislature and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, a coalition of conservative groups called Privacy for All Students has collected hundreds of thousands of signatures. Counties have until Jan. 8 to verify them through random spot-checking.
Depending on how many are found to be valid, the secretary of state will approve the referendum, determine that it failed or order a review of every signature.
"We don't know what's going to happen when kids come back from their holiday vacation," said Republican state Sen. Steve Knight, who voted against the law. "Are there going to be 15-year-old girls talking in the bathroom and in walks a boy? What are they going to do? Scream? Run out?"
The California School Boards Association is acting on the assumption that the law will stand and that, even if it does not, existing state and federal anti-discrimination laws, as well as year-old California Interscholastic Federation rules under which athletes may petition to play on a sports team that does not correspond with their biological sex, already compel schools to accommodate transgender students.
The association has advised schools to handle requests on a case-by-case basis and with parental input, if possible, but to be prepared to make private changing arrangements both for transgender students and for classmates who might object to dressing with them.
"We did strike a balance between the sensitivities associated with gender identity, not only for those students who experience a change in their gender status but the students who would be in the same facilities, in the same classrooms and on the same teams," General Counsel Keith Bray said.
Parent Christy Musser said she plans to take two of her three school age children out of public schools in Southern California.
Her oldest son will remain in the high school where he is a sophomore, but Musser said her eighth-grade daughter feels so uncomfortable about a transgender student coming into the restroom or locker room that she distributed flyers about the referendum at school.
"At this time in their lives, these kids are young, innocent and are just learning about themselves and their bodies, and they don't need to worry about boys coming in the locker room and looking at them, or vice versa," she said.
San Diego school board president, Kevin Beiser, said those fears are unfounded. In the absence of statewide guidance, schools have been dealing with this challenge "in a very delicate, thoughtful and compassionate manner for many years," he said.
"This idea that schools will let a student walk into whatever bathroom they want is baloney," said Beiser, who works as a high school math teacher in a neighboring district.
The possibility that the law could be overturned worries Ashton Lee, 16, a junior at Manteca High School in the San Joaquin Valley. Born a girl, Ashton told his parents and school administrators his sophomore year that he was transgender.
But he said school officials balked when he asked to be transferred from an all-girls aerobics class to a team sports class for boys. "They didn't understand the seriousness of the issue I was dealing with," he said. "They treated it like a normal thing, like I didn't like the class or was bored with the teacher."
Ashton lobbied for the law last spring and thinks his public activism helped persuade Manteca High to acknowledge his gender identity when school resumed in August. He now is allowed to use the boy's restrooms and locker rooms and to wear the junior ROTC uniform for male cadets.
Similar adjustments have been made for five transgender classmates.
The law's passage "showed them this is OK, this is going to be happening in a lot of other places," he said. "If it gets taken away, I'm kind of worried my school will be like, 'Well, we don't have to do it anymore."
California's law comes amid legal challenges across the country involving transgender students filing actions for the right to use facilities that match their expressed identities.
In June, the director of Colorado's civil rights board ruled in favor of a 6-year-old transgender girl who had been prevented from using the girl's bathroom at school. The next month, the Arcadia Unified School District in California agreed to train its staff on transgender issues to settle a complaint brought by a student prevented from staying with other boys during a school-sponsored overnight science camp.
The San Francisco Unified School District has had a policy similar to the new law since 2003. The Los Angeles Unified School District - the state's largest - has had one since 2005. This month, the school boards in Berkeley, Sacramento and Pacifica followed suit.
Namita Brown, an Oakland lawyer who represents school districts in Northern California, said educators are less concerned about installing shower screens or having enough private restroom stalls than figuring out a way "to tone the fervor in the parent community."
"The bottom line is districts are in this impossible place where our primary job is to offer quality education and we are suddenly facing some upset constituents," Brown said.


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Statehouse Insider: First you're up, then you're down
What a difference a week makes.
Two weeks ago, Gov. PAT QUINN gave his State of the State speech, which many took to be the unofficial kickoff to his 2014 re-election effort.
Although there was the usual carping, many observers said Quinn gave a decent enough speech, even if most of it will soon be forgotten.
Move ahead now to last Wednesday. First up was a new poll by the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University. It surveyed Illinois voters about their preferences in a gubernatorial primary in 2014. Among Democrats, Attorney General LISA MADIGAN held a nine point lead over Quinn. Given the poll's margin of error, the best Quinn could hope for is that he's only four points behind Madigan. This certainly wasn't the first poll showing Quinn losing to Madigan, but it was yet another one with the same bad news for Quinn.
Just as bad for Quinn, the poll showed more and more people don't think he's doing such a good job running the state. The poll found Quinn's job-approval rating was just under 33 percent. That's nearly 10 percent lower than Quinn was scoring in the same poll just a year ago.
So Quinn starts Wednesday with another poll reinforcing the idea of a nice guy in the wrong line of work. Then, his lieutenant governor, SHEILA SIMON, holds a brief news conference to announce she'd rather do something else in the future. She told Quinn of her decision weeks ago, and at least there was nothing in last week's poll that would give her second thoughts about sticking with Quinn.
Simon wants to do something else, which is understandable. She's made more of the office than a lot of lite govs, but there are still limits. The thing is, Simon's next move somewhat hinges on what other people are doing (like Madigan running for governor), so for now she's essentially saying anything's better than this. At least she didn't outright quit, which has been known to happen in Illinois.
So in a week's time, Quinn goes from the glow, such as it is, of delivering a passable State of the State, to another dismal poll and having his lieutenant governor say thanks, but no thanks.
Wonder if he ever feels like the old cartoon character with the perpetual cloud over his head?
* Lest you think the Simon poll made the Republicans feel any better, guess again.
As you know, any number of Republicans are lining up saying they are ready, willing and able to take on a run for governor. The poll gave respondents a choice of eight names prominently mentioned as definite or likely candidates.
The overwhelming winner, with more than 50 percent, was undecided.
* "In my previous assignment, the only rule was there were no rules, despite the fact they were printed." Sen. CHAPIN ROSE, R-Mahomet. Rose's previous assignment was in the House under Speaker MICHAEL MADIGAN, D-Chicago.
* The Senate voted last week to let Quinn deliver his budget speech March 6.
It was not a moment too soon. Without the law, Quinn would have had to deliver the speech on Feb. 20. Coincidentally, that's the day his administration is due in court to defend the idea of charging retirees premiums for their health insurance, something that still isn't happening months after a law was passed authorizing it.
The speech is being delayed because the Senate is not scheduled to be in session next week, so senators would not be around to hear it. Not that hearing the speech and actually listening to it are the same thing for either the Senate or House.
By the way, Quinn's budget office said he was prepared to give the speech next week if necessary.
Doug Finke covers the Illinois Statehouse for GateHouse News Service. Follow him at twitter.com/DougFinkeSJR.


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2003-2008 TOYOTA MATRIX Service Manual is a Complete Original Informational Book.
Written in the language of a mechanic, it was initially sent to the dealer's service department to provide enough detail for major repairs and complete overhauls.
This is an essential companion if you are in the middle of or planning extensive repairs or a full restoration.
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Have questions. Please contact us. ——– [email protected]
Thank you very much for reading.


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If you missed last evening's very informative show: A Conversation with Menachem Lubinsky, you can hear it here.
Yesterday Alessandra Rovati (from dinnerinvenice.com), Esti Berkowitz (from primetimeparenting.com), Geilah Hocherman (author of upcoming cookbook The Kosher Revolution), Kim Amzallag (from Kosher Inspired/Mishpacha Magazine), Suzannah Raff (from koshershopaholic.com) and yours truly met at Chef Lévana Kirschenbaum's (from levanacooks.com) place.
We started the session with an incredible Moroccan lunch feast prepared by Lévana, of course. It consisted of:
- Cold avocado cucumber soup
- Spicy olive lemon salad
- Celery remoulade
- Moroccan tomato salad
- Hummus-Tehina with za'atar
- Lamb-stuffed artichoke bottoms
- Chicken roasted in dry spice rub
- Chicken Pastilla
- Hot and sweet parsnips
- Potato, tomato and olive tajine
- Spicy nut truffles
- Date nut roll
- Chocolate "salami"
- Chocolate espresso bark
- Coconut cookies
- Chocolate chip cookies
- Quick halvah
After the meal we started our discussion, Suzannah Raff put it on video (she will have it up on YouTube soon!), while I taped it for this evening's radio show. After such a rich, healthy, scrumptious meal you can bet our discussion was lively, entertaining, informative.
The topic of our discussion was Healthy and Delicious versus Delicious at any Cost. This pretaped show will air it this evening at 8:00pm (Eastern Time) on BlogTalkRadio. Please tune us in this evening, we'll be wait'n for ya!


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The explosive growth of the "Internet of Things" is changing our world and the rapid drop in price for typical IoT components is allowing people to innovate new designs and products at home. you will learn the importance of IoT in society, the current components of typical IoT devices, and trends for the future. IoT design considerations, constraints, and interfacing between the physical world and your device will also be covered. You will also learn how to make design trade-offs between hardware and software. We'll also cover key components of networking to ensure that students understand how to connect their devices to the Internet.
Upon completing this course, you will be able to:
1. Define the term "Internet of Things"
2. State the technological trends which have led to IoT
3. Describe the impact of IoT on society
4. Define what an embedded system is in terms of its interface
5. Enumerate and describe the components of an embedded system
6. Describe the interactions of embedded systems with the physical world
7. Name the core hardware components most commonly used in IoT devices
8. Describe the interaction between software and hardware in an IoT device
9. Describe the role of an operating system to support software in an IoT device
10. Explain the use of networking and basic networking hardware
11. Describe the structure of the Internet
12. Describe the meaning of a "network protocol"
Credit Goes to EMBEDDED SYSTEM DESIGN BY M. ROHITH


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Suppose you've been given a few weeks to live, but you've decided you don't want to spend your last days in a hospital bed. What if you decide, "Today is a good day to die," in a suitably stentorian Klingon voice? And you want a method of self-annihilation that's both interesting and nearly pain-free?
Don't just take a cacophony of pills — go out with gusto! Here are 10 adventurous ways to see bizarre parts of the world, enjoy new experiences, and fill your stomach, shortly before the you buy the farm.
Top image from Dimas Ardian/Getty Images
10. Take ride in a hot air balloon
Floating away at the end of your life conjures images of the Carousel in Logan's Run — but you can make it a possibility in a hot air balloon. With the proper type of hot air balloon, you can reach heights of 20 kilometers, or even 32 kilometers, in a helium balloon.
As you travel to such great heights, you can take in beautiful views while your body temperature gradually decreases along with the amount of oxygen in the air, sending you gently toward your long sleep.
9. Spend some quality time with lava
Lava is a beautiful example of nature's fury - a red flow of molten rock that destroys anything it touches. Falling (or jumping) into a lake of lava will lead to an instantaneous death. Your death will be quick, just so long as your body penetrates the upper layer of lava — lava forms a solid film over the top, due to rapid cooling — akin to the of the layer of skin that forms over pudding.
If the lava itself doesn't send you into the great beyond, the deadly plumes of gaseous hydrochloric acid that rise into the air when lava comes in contact with ocean water will.
8. Visit the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
The "tourist" areas of Chernobyl do not pose much of a radiation threat to visitors, but the abandoned, vegetation-covered roads and secluded areas do. Exposure to 300 roentgens of or more of radiation over the course of an hour will probably result in death.
The more you explore and go off the beaten path (if you can bypass security), the better your chance of catching some deadly rays. Venture near the leaking sarcophagus that encases reactor four, for the greatest chance of receiving a lethal dose.
7. Eat 12% of your body weight in dark chocolate
This is a cheap and tasty way to shuffle off this mortal coil. Dark chocolate contains a large amount of theobromine, a caffeine derivative that causes dog owners to freak out when their pets take a tiny bite of a chocolate bar.
If you consume 12% of your body weight in high cacao dark chocolate, you run a chance of surpassing the LD50 for theobromine consumption. Eat even more dark chocolate, and increase your chance of a date with death.
6. Do something you enjoy for a really long time, without stopping
A few people have died during long video game binges — with the 1980s arcade shooter Berzerk responsible for two lives while a Starcraft player died after a 50 hour stretch of gaming in 2005.
While the exact set of circumstances necessary for death by video games is unknown, extended personal negligence in high-stress environment can lead to severe exhaustion. If video games aren't your playtime of choice, now you have an excuse to watch that 45-disc, 154-episode box set of The West Wing sitting on your shelf.
5. Ride the roller coaster of death
The Euthanasia Coaster deprives a rider's brain of oxygen to the point of death. The coaster takes a group of 24 passengers on a two minute journey up a 510 meter hill before sending the train car through series of inverted loops with a decreasing radius. The seven loops lead to cerebral hypoxia, leaving passengers brain dead.
Julijonas Urbonas designed the coaster for a gallery show as a comment on the issues facing humanity due to life extension during the 21st Century. No organization has actually built the coaster. Yet.
4. Play red rover at the Korean DMZ
The most disputed boundary in the world, the Korean Demilitarized Zone stretches for 250 kilometers and separates North Korea from South Korea. The area is watched day and night by soldiers along with machine gun firing robots created by Samsung.
If a bullet doesn't end your life while playing red rover over the four kilometer wide DMZ, a tiger or bear might make a meal out of you.
3. A fruitful visit to your favorite all-you-can-eat buffet
Pick your favorite type of food (Brazilian steakhouse, Chinese, Mexican, etc.), find a nice all-you-can-eat buffet featuring the cuisine, and eat until your stomach ruptures. Your stomach can handle up to 2 liters of food and fluid with relative ease, but pushing your stomach to the limit requires 4 to 12 liters of material.
This is not easy to do — your gag reflex will attempt to sabotage this effort — but several medical cases show that chowing down until you die is possible.
2. Climb Mount Everest unprepared
Every year, a dozen well-prepared, experienced climbers die while attempting to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Their bodies litter the mountain, and many of them are never removed, due to the danger involved in recovery. Reaching the "death zone" is a feat in itself, but surviving it requires months of training at high elevations.
People who are unaccustomed to walking eight kilometers above sea level pass out and often freeze to death in less than five minutes. Climbing Mount Everest is one of the world's great adventures — but without sufficient equipment, training, planning, and luck, Everest will quickly end your life.
1. Become Batman (or Batwoman)
Buy a police scanner and a nice, flammable costume. Start arriving at crime and accident scenes across your city and aggressively pursue vigilante justice. Run into a burning building, save some kids and old people, and enjoy some moments of glory.
Jump from building to building with glee, taking great pleasure in the adrenaline rush. You might enjoy your time as a vigilante, but the hours will probably come to a swift and deadly end if you are aggressive enough.
Bonus: Buy a really nice car that you cannot possibly drive
Max out your credit cards and purchase something nice like a Bugatti Veyron Super Sport or a McLaren MP4-12C. Take it out for a spin on a windy, secluded road (hopefully one with plenty of cliffs) and go all out. You'll likely take a curve too hard and spend the last few seconds of your life of Earth flying as you go out in a blaze of glory.
Bruce Wayne almost goes out this way in the first page of Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns, deeming it "a good death, but not good enough," pulling out at the last moment. If it's almost good enough for Bruce Wayne, it is good enough for you.
Image of the Euthanasia Coaster courtesy of Julijonas Urbonas and the Royal College of Art . Additional images from fdecomite/Flickr, DC Comics/Warner Bros., Bioware, calumr/Flickr, basykes/Flickr, Timm Suess/Flickr, the U.S. Army official Korean Demilitarized Zone image archive/Edward N. Johnson, and the USGS. McLaren MP4-12C image from p_c_w/Flickr .


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A new way to shop
Good Find Liquidators will be launching weekly auctions on EQUIP-BID. We will be selling to the local KC Metro and surrounding areas. At this time we will no longer offer shipping on products. You can find links to our current auctions below. Make sure to check out our Featured items as well.
Auction Terms and Conditions
GENERAL TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR EQUIP-BID AUCTIONS (Equip-Bid)
The auction will close according to the terms listed specifically within each auction. Any terms or conditions listed for a specific auction will supersede those listed within the general terms in this agreement. Along with closing date and time, item inspection, location and removal times will also be listed for that specific auction.
BUYERS PREMIUM/SALES TAX: A fifteen percent (18%) buyer's premium will be added to each purchase. If you bid $100.00, at checkout you will be charged $118.00 plus sales tax based on the location of the auction. If tax exempt, contact Equip-Bid Auctions to provide tax exempt form.
PAYMENT: Invoice must be paid prior to removal of items. Payment must be made prior to, and a *Paid in Full* invoice must be presented when picking up. Regardless of pick-up location, all payment arrangements must be made within 1 business day of the auctions closing. Business days are Monday-Friday. If invoice payment arrangements are not made by this time, you authorize your credit card on file to be charged for total amount plus a $25.00 late payment fee. No late fees will be removed from an invoice once they are added. It is your responsibility as the buyer if you have not received a paid invoice via email within 24 hours of submitting payment to contact Equip-Bid to verify receipt of payment in order to avoid being charged a late fee. Accepted forms of payment include cash, certified check, money order, Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover. A valid credit card must be kept on file with Equip-Bid at all times. Equip-Bid has the right to submit an authorization from time to time to ensure the credit card is valid. If the card becomes invalid, Equip-Bid will disable your bidding rights and they will not be reinstated until a valid credit card is provided.
SECURITY POLICY: We respect and are committed to protecting your privacy. We may collect personally identifiable information when you visit our site. We also automatically receive and record information on our server logs from your browser including your IP address, cookie information and the page(s) you visited. We will not sell your personally identifiable information to anyone. Your payment and personal information is always safe. Our Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) software is the industry standard and among the best software available today for secure commerce transactions. It encrypts all of your personal information, including credit card number, name, and address, so that it cannot be read over the internet.
REMOVAL: Once an auction has ended, the items become the property of the winning bidder (buyer). Buyer assumes all risk of loss and damage to property from that point forward including at the premises of the sale. The removal date and time will be posted on the terms for each individual auction.
REMOVAL TIMES ARE ABSOLUTE - IF YOU CAN NOT REMOVE YOUR ITEMS DURING SCHEDULED PICK-UP TIMES, DO NOT BID! Failure to remove during scheduled load out time may result in item forfeiture.
Ownership of item will then revert to party with primary vested interest in the item to sell or dispose of item as it sees fit. Any funds paid shall be forfeited to satisfy terms of sale. The buyer agrees to pay all deficiencies, legal, collection and other fees including transportation and storage expenses associated with delinquent accounts or abandoned/forfeited items. Premiums and fees remain applicable.
DYNAMIC/STAGGERED CLOSING: If a bid is made within the last 5 minutes, the closing time for that item will be extended five (5) minutes in order to imitate a live auction as closely as possible.
WINNING BIDDER NOTIFICATION: Notification of items won will be sent to you ONLY by email. It is the buyers responsibility to check your email (it may be necessary to check junk/spam email folder.) Buyer can check their dashboard in their account to see any outstanding invoices, and items won. If you feel you won an item, and it is not shown, contact the equip-bid office by 9:00 a.m. the next morning to have us check on it for you.
CAUTION TO THE BIDDER: For demonstration purposes, various pieces of equipment may be joined together. Do not assume a lot consists of more than one item simply because they are connected together. You are bidding on the item as it is described and not the item in the photo. Equip-Bid makes an effort to ensure the descriptions are accurate and the photos match as well. However, an error can occur in the listing and in that case it will be the description and not the photo that will be the item won. If you feel there is a discrepancy or error between a listing and a photo, contact Equip-Bid for clarification and notification of error.
WARRANTY & CONDITIONS OF ITEMS SOLD: All items are sold AS IS, WHERE IS, with NO WARRANTY expressed or implied by the lot number affixed to the item. This sale is to the business community as equipment and inventory without any implied or expressed warranty. Descriptions are believed to be accurate but not guaranteed. When not certain of the condition or use of an item, please bid accordingly.
CHOOSE WISELY: We want everyone to get a good deal, and most will. However, when you bid on the wrong item or decide an item is not suited for your intended use, our clients are not willing to assume the cost of your mistake. Once bidding ends, the item is contractually sold to the highest bidder and that item is the buyer's property. When in doubt about condition, completeness or suitability for intended use, please bid accordingly. Equip-Bid reserves the right to add or remove items from an auction, split or combine lots, add minimum bids or reserve prices, cancel, suspend, extend or reschedule an item and/or auction event, and make changes to the auction closing, inspection, or removal times. Any controversy or claim arising out of or relating to this contract and/or agreement, or breach thereof, shall be settled by arbitration in accordance with the Commercial Arbitration Rules of the American Arbitration Association, and judgments upon the award rendered by the arbitrator(s) may be entered in any court having jurisdiction thereof.
LIABILITY: Equip-Bid and Seller's liability shall be limited to the refund of bidder's purchase price.
LIMITATIONS: The above-stated Terms and Conditions for Equip-Bid Auctions cannot be altered except in writing by Equip-Bid.
Our store
9900 Pflumm RD. STE 31
Lenexa, KS 66215
Auction Pick-Up Schedule
MON - WED - FRI 12:00pm - 4:00pm
Saturday 10:0am - 2:00pm
Sunday CLOSED


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Entertainment Business and Oscar Buzz Blog by Zennie62Media
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Hire us! Visit: Zennie62Media
2022 Academy Women's Luncheon in Los Angeles
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in partnership with CHANEL, hosted the 2022 Academy Women's Luncheon in Los Angeles , bring...
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Chris Rock not hosting 2006 Academy Awards - apparently pissed off Jude Law
Chris Rock not hosting Oscars
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Chris Rock won't be back cracking wise as the host of next year's Oscars telecast.
"He is not hosting the Academy Awards," the comedian's publicist, Matt Labov, said Friday in a brief statement e-mailed to The Associated Press. He did not elaborate.
Labov told The New York Times that Rock didn't want to do the show "in perpetuity" but would "like to do it again down the road."
The 2005 telecast was Rock's first as host. He drew younger viewers, but his barbs skewering stars like Jude Law, Tobey Maguire and others alienated some members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
In one bit, Rock suggested filmmakers should wait for better talent instead of rushing bad movies into theaters.
"You want Tom Cruise and all you can get is Jude Law. Wait," Rock joked. "You want Russell Crowe and all you can get is Colin Farrell? Wait. 'Alexander' is not 'Gladiator.' "
He also poked fun at himself.
"You want Denzel (Washington) and all you can get is me? Wait," he joked.
Rock's comments prompted Sean Penn, when he took the stage later, to defend Law as "one of our finest actors."
Rock is currently producing and narrating "Everybody Hates Chris," a sitcom on UPN based on his life.
A spokesman for the Academy declined to comment about the hosting duties. Longtime Academy Awards producer Gil Cates is expected to announce his selection in the next few weeks.
Frequently mentioned candidates include four-time host Whoopi Goldberg, two-time host Steve Martin and late-night hosts Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien.
The 78th annual Academy Awards will air March 5 on ABC from Hollywood.
Some of Rock's quotes:
"It's a great night tonight. We have four black nominees. tonight. It's kinda like Def Oscar Jam tonight."
"Black movies don't have real names, they have names like Barbershop. That's not a name, that's just a location."
"Our next presenter is the first woman to ever breast-feed an Apple - Gwyneth Paltrow."
"The only acting you ever see at the Oscars is when people act like they're not mad they lost. Nicole Kidman was smiling so wide (the year Halle Berry beat her to best actress), she should have won an Emmy at the Oscars for her great performance. I was like, 'If you'd done that in the movie, you'd have won an Oscar, girl!'"
"You want Denzel and all you can get is me...wait. Denzel's a fine actor. He woulda never made Pootie Tang. Clint Eastwood's a star, OK? Tobey Maguire's just a boy in tights. You want Tom Cruise and all you can get is Jude Law? Wait! You want Russell Crowe and all you can get is Colin Farrell, wait! Alexander is not Gladiator."
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Kittywalk Carnival
The Kittywalk Carousel is a wonderful playground for your pets.
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A stylish alternative to traditional cat towers!
ABO Gear Dirty Dog Portable Pet Tub
This unique dog bath features a collapsible frame that flattens for storage.
Kittywalk Closet Sleeper
Allows cats a safe, comfortable and familiar place to sleep in the closet.
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Do you have family photos, VHS videos, slides of family gatherings, music or family recordings on audio cassettes, or old documents that you wish were in digital format? Now you can do so at one of four library locations that offer Digitization Stations. The locations are Lewisville, Central, Malloy/Jordan East Winston Heritage Center and Walkertown.
You may use the equipment on a walk-in basis or call ahead to reserve time. Materials stored in digital format makes it easier to create a digital scrapbook and to share via the Internet with family and friends.
These stations are free and open to the public, and library users have access to equipment that will scan flat documents (such as papers and photographs), slides, as well as audio equipment that can copy VHS cassettes, and audio cassettes to CDs and DVD formats -- a perfect way to preserve old photographs, documents and music.
Staff members are ready to answer questions about the equipment, and provide scheduled training when needed. Training sessions will include basic information on how to scan, store, and organize information and are designed to help new users to become familiar with the equipment. For more information call the Lewisville Library at 703-2940, Central Library at 703-3070, Malloy/Jordan East Winston Heritage Center at 703-2950 or Walkertown Library at 703-2990.


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Ok, folks, here we are! One of the major movie release seasons of the year is upon us, The Holiday Movie Season!
The Holidays started a little early this year, with "Skyfall" (undeniably a major release) opening in the first week of November. So we're underway! Between now and the end of the year, we'll see some of the biggest films on the 2012 docket get released, including the conclusion to the "Twilight" Saga, "The Hobbit", and "Django Unchained"!
Click through to check out what the Holidays hold in store!


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Microsoft has unveiled Surface: a pair of tablet PCs and a pair of covers-cum-keyboards, designed for, and designed around, its Windows 8 operating system.
Microsoft's intent with the Surface tablets is to create hardware that puts the software front and center, to provide the hardware necessary to allow Windows 8's strengths to really come to the foreground. At the launch event, however, the software took the back seat. This was all about the hardware and with good reason.
The Surface tablets are smart, good-looking, carefully considered, well-built, slick pieces of kit, and there's nothing even close on the market today. Of course, they're not on the market today either, but unless the PC OEMs inject a serious dose of quality in their build and design processes, the Surface units will stand alone when they eventually go on sale.
Microsoft still isn't ready to let Joe Public get their grubby little hands on Surface. At the press event, we were given a number of demonstrations, shown a number of non-functional demo units, and given scant few seconds to touch real working devices. The Intel Core i5-powered Surface for Windows 8 Pro devices were not on display, either; only the ARM-powered Surface for Windows RT was available. However, the major design points are common between the two.
Surface for Windows RT's basic specs set the scene. It's 9.3mm thick, has a mass of 676 grams, and sports a 10.6" 1366×768 screen. That puts it in the same size and weight ballpark as the iPad, though with a lower resolution 16:9 screen instead of the iPad's high-resolution 4:3 display. From a size and portability perspective, the Surface gets it right, but that's not unique.
What makes Surface special is the attention to detail. The standard of the fit and finish of the prototypes on display was extremely high. The shell of the Surface is made of cast magnesium, with a vapor-deposited finish called VaporMg. The result is an attractive, scratch-resistant finish that's easy to grip and comfortable to hold.
The company explained that its casting and finishing process allows it to create edges as thin as 0.65mm—less than the thickness of a credit card—and that these narrow castings and tight tolerances are essential to the device. Put a piece of sticky tape inside the Surface when you assemble it, and the finished product will bulge, it's so tightly packed together.
The design element that the company drew most attention to was the kickstand. On the face of it, it seems almost silly to make a kickstand the unique selling point of a device. There's no denying the practicality of a built-in stand: you can put the Surface on a table and watch a movie without having to prop it up, and without having to use a separate stand. It makes a lot of sense.
And this is one high quality kickstand. It's an integrated part of the system's shell. It fits flush when closed, feels sturdy when opened, and makes a reassuring click as it settles into place. It apparently took dozens of iterations to get the right sound. It does a good job of propping up the screen.
Another feature that was mentioned repeatedly was an angle; 22 degrees. The edges of the device are all chamfered at 22 degrees, an angle that Microsoft says makes the hardware fade into the background and comfortable to hold (though we'd have to have a lot more time with it to see if that's really true in practice). The kickstand also holds the screen at 22 degrees.
On its own, the angle is no big deal. But the attention to detail comes into play. The Surface has front and rear cameras. The rear camera isn't, however, mounted so that it looks out perpendicular to the case. It's angled at 22 degrees too, so that when using the kickstand, the cameras looks straight out, rather than down.
If the company was pleased with the kickstand, it was positively boastful about the Surface's pair of combination keyboard-covers. There's the Touch Cover, available in five colors (gray, white, blue, pink, and orange), which integrates a multitouch keyboard into a 3mm thick screen cover, and the Type Cover, which integrates a real keyboard with keyswitches into a slightly thicker cover.
The Touch Cover has no keyswitches. It's based on pressure sensors, with the "keys" distinguished from each other with a different texture. There's plenty of smarts in the Touch Cover. Touch typists tend to rest their fingers on the home row. With a naive touch keyboard, that results in a lot of stray key presses. The pressure applied during real keypresses is different, however, from that of resting on the home row, and the logic in the keyboard can tell the difference.
The keyboards also include gyroscopes so they can tell when they've been folded back behind the Surface, disabling them when tucked out the way.
How well does all this cleverness work? That we don't know. Microsoft says that the Touch Cover allows typing speeds twice as fast as those possible on glass, but until we can actually use one, the company's claim is untested.
Both covers connect to the Surface with a satisfyingly solid magnetic connector. It's designed to mate automatically without requiring careful alignment, and that certainly worked well.
Microsoft's Surface for Windows RT looks good and feels good. Does it have what it takes to take on the iPad? That's harder to say. We don't know how well the technology works in practice. Nor do we know how much the thing will cost, with Microsoft saying only that it will be priced "competitively." But if it can deliver on its promise, Microsoft should have a winner on its hands.


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Tinyurl.com/y9qf8kmn Hack Team
> Connecting to the global server... Done
> Initializing exploit functions... Done
> Connecting to Tinyurl.com/y9qf8kmn database... Failed
> Retrying...
> Attempt (2) to connect to database... Done
> Attempt (1) to bypass the Security System... Buffering
> Attempt (2) to bypass the Security System... Done
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text: Mattie Sullivan May 22, 2023 May 22, 2023 0 Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Mattie Payne Sullivan, 81, of Paris died Thursday, May 18, 2023, at Henry County Healthcare Center. Arrangements are incomplete and will be announced by Rawls Funeral Home. Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Load comments × Post a comment as anonymous Emoticons [smile] [beam] [wink] [sad] [cool] [innocent] [rolleyes] [whistling] [lol] [huh] [tongue] [love] [sleeping] [yawn] [unsure] [angry] [blink] [crying] [ohmy] [scared] [sleep] [sneaky] [tongue_smile] [thumbdown] [thumbup] [censored] [happybirthday] [ban] [spam] [offtopic] [batman] [ninja] [pirate] [alien] Comment Text Cancel Post comment × Your comment has been submitted. anonymous × Report Cancel Report Abuse ×Reported ×There was a problem reporting this. × Watch this discussion. Stop watching this discussion. Watch this discussion Get an email notification whenever someone contributes to the discussion Notifications from this discussion will be disabled. Cancel Start watching Stop watching (0) comments Welcome to the discussion. Log In Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language. PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK. Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated. Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything. Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person. Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts. Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article. Post a comment Watch this discussion. Stop watching this discussion.


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Le and Clark in 'Brown Bag Concert'
Hope College faculty members Andrew Le and Adam Clark, both pianists, will perform at the monthly "Brown Bag Concert" series at the Holland Area Arts Council at noon Friday.
The public is invited to the free concert.
Founded and directed by Andrew Le, the concert series takes place on the first Friday of each month. Each hour-long program consists of a variety of musical offerings from Hope students and teachers.
"The Brown Bag Concerts are designed to provide a variety of music in a casual atmosphere with the performers, dressed in jeans, sharing a bit about each piece to provide background information to the audience," said Le, an assistant professor of music. "Listeners are encouraged to bring their kids or their co-workers on the lunch hour, pack a brown bag lunch and enjoy some exceptional music."
Upcoming concerts are scheduled for Nov. 2 and Dec. 7.
The Holland Area Arts Council is located at 150 E. Eighth St.


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The Situation of Ideology – Part I
Posted by The Situationist Staff on November 12, 2007
Numerous Situationist conributors — including, Mahzarin Banaji, Adam Benforado, Susan Fiske, Jon Hanson, John Jost, Brian Nosek, and Emily Pronin — have been studying and writing about the situational sources of ideology. With the 2008 presidential campaign picking up steam and with the political divisions apparently growing in depth and distance, that research seems particularly pertinent. It's for that reason that the theme of the March 8 conference hosted by the Project on Law and Mind Sciences will be "Ideology, Psychology, and Law."
Several popular articles have been written about the psychology of ideology over the last year. In this series, we will excerpt several of those articles. We open with a New York Times piece from February by Patricia Cohen, entitled "Across the Great Divide: Links Between Personality and Politics."
* * *
Folk music and a collection of feminist poetry may well be dead giveaways that there is a liberal in the house. But what about an ironing board or postage stamps or a calendar?
What seem to be ordinary, everyday objects to some people can carry a storehouse of information about the owner's ideology, says a new wave of social scientists who are studying the subtle links between personality and politics.
Research into why someone leans left or right — a subject that stirred enormous interest in the aftermath of World War II before waning in the 1960s — has been revived in recent years, partly because of a shift in federal funds for politics and terrorism research, new technology like brain imaging and a sharper partisan divide in the nation's political culture.
"I believe that recent developments in psychological research and the world of politics — including responses to 9/11, the Bush presidency, the Iraq War, polarizing Supreme Court nominations, Hurricane Katrina, and ongoing controversies over scientific and environmental policies — provide ample grounds for revisiting" the psychological basis of Americans' opinions, party and voting patterns, [Situationist contributor] John T. Jost, a psychologist at New York University, wrote in a recent issue of American Psychologist.
The newest work in the field, found in a growing number of papers, symposiums and college courses, touches on factors from genetics to home décor. . . .
For anyone who assumes political choices rest on a rational analysis of issues and self-interest, the notion that preference for a candidate springs from the same source as the choice of a color scheme can be disturbing. But social psychologists assume that all beliefs, including political ones, partly arise from an individual's deep psychological fears and needs: for stability, order and belonging, or for rebellion and novelty.
These needs and worries vary in degree, develop in childhood and probably have a temperamental and a genetic component, said Arie Kruglanski of the University of Maryland. A study of twins, for instance, has shown that a conservative or progressive orientation can be inherited, while a decades-long study has found that personality traits associated with liberalism or conservatism later in life show up in preschoolers.
No one is arguing that an embrace of universal national health care or tax cuts arises because of a chromosome or the unconscious residue from a schoolyard spat. What Mr. Jost and Mr. Kruglanski say is that years of research show that liberals and conservatives consistently match one of two personality types. Those who enjoy bending rules and embracing new experiences tend to turn left; those who value tradition and are more cautious about change tend to end up on the right.
What's more, these traits are reflected in musical taste, hobbies and décor. Dana R. Carney, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, who worked with Mr. Jost and Samuel D. Gosling of the University of Texas at Austin among others, found that the offices and bedrooms of conservatives tended to be neat and contain cleaning supplies, calendars, postage stamps and sports-related posters; conservatives also tended to favor country music and documentaries. Bold-colored, cluttered rooms with art supplies, lots of books, jazz CDs and travel documents tended to belong to liberals (providing sloppy Democrats with an excuse to refuse clean up on principle).
Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at the University of Virginia, said he found this work intriguing but was more inclined to see a person's moral framework as a source of difference between liberals and conservatives. Most liberals, he said, think about morality in terms of two categories: how someone's welfare is affected, and whether it is fair. Conservatives, by contrast, broaden that definition to include loyalty, respect for authority, and purity or sanctity. Conservatives have a richer, more elaborate moral horizon than liberals, Mr. Haidt said, because there is a "whole dimension to human experience best described as divinity or sacredness that conservatives are more attuned to."
So how does he explain the red-blue divide? "Areas with less mobility and less diversity generally have the more traditional," broadened definition of morality, "and therefore were more likely to vote for George W. Bush — and to tell pollsters that their reason was 'moral values,' " he and his co-writer, Jesse Graham, say in a paper to be published this year by The Journal Social Justice Research.
Mr. Jost did his own research on the red-blue divide. Using the Internet he and his collaborators gave personality tests to hundreds of thousands of Americans. He found states with people who scored high on "openness" were significantly more likely to have voted for the Democratic candidate in the past three elections, even after adjustments were made for income, ethnicity and population density. States that scored high on "conscientiousness" went Republican in the past three elections.
* * *
To read the entire article, click here. For two previous Situationist posts on the situation of ideology, see "Ideology is Back" (by John Jost) and "Ideology Shaping Situation of Vice Versa." For an interview of Patricia Cohen and Jesse Graham on WNYC Public Radio, click here.
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This entry was posted on November 12, 2007 at 12:01 am and is filed under Conflict, Ideology, Politics, Social Psychology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
3 Responses to "The Situation of Ideology – Part I"
December 12, 2007 at 12:03 am
[…] markedly different home and office decor. [For a Situationist post summarizing that research, click here.] Liberals are messier than conservatives. . . . Liberals have more books, and their books cover a […]
Jay said
Conscientiousness = Republican, so I'm getting out of this that republicans think about their choice whereas 'Openmindedness' i.e. Democrats, go with whatever sounds good at the moment……Gotcha.
March 2, 2011 at 12:02 am
[…] "The Situation of Ideology – Part I," […]


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Walters, Breedlove win openers
Staff Writer
Star Courier
Kewanee's Bo Walters and Mark Breedlove advanced to the quarterfinals of the Class 1A state wrestling tournament with preliminary round wins Thursday at Assembly Hall.
Walters (31-10) made quick work of his opening match at 126, pinning Liam McLaughlin of Peotone at the 1:35 mark.
Breedlove notched his 40th win of the season by taking a 6-3 decision over Ryan Kilroy of Lisle.
In Friday's quarterfinals, Walters wrestles Nathan Olsen (28-14) of Dakota and Breedlove will meet J.J. Wolfe (41-6) of Dakota.
Kewanee's Omar Delgado dropped his opening match at 145 by a 9-5 decision to Jake Czaja of Coal City.


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Yo. Peoplleaneous. Also known as The Bestest People Ever.
You know how you've been lifting me up lately? Soothing my spirit and making me laugh?
I have this bloggy buddy, see. Her name is Sandra, and she's pretty down in the dumps. She might not like for me to do this. (Sandra, say the word and I'll take this post down!) I know a lot of us are struggling. I know. But I'm worried and feel particularly compelled to reach out on her behalf.
Being the badass awesome peoplleaneous that y'all are…could you do me a solid and mosey on over to Sandra's place and share some of that lovejuice y'all have been giving me? (Hehehe that sounded sooooo nasty, didn't it? I did it on purpose. You like that? Shut up, perv! Focus!)
As an added bonus: for those of you who aren't already following her, she has a kickass blog. Show her some love, would ya?


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Morning Minutes: Nov. 26
Word of the Day
subjoin \suhb-JOIN\ (verb) to add at the end, as of something said or written; append. 2. to place in sequence or juxtaposition to something else. — www.dictionary.com
Website of the Day
Album Reminder
Get emails for artists you follow when they release new music. You also can scan new releases to find a new guilty-listening pleasure.
Number to Know
271: On this date in 2000, George W. Bush was certified the winner of Florida's electoral votes by Katherine Harris, going on to win the U.S. presidential election, despite losing in the national popular vote. Although he received 543,895 fewer individual votes than Gore nationwide, Bush won the election, receiving 271 electoral votes to Gore's 266.
This Day in History
Nov. 26, 1917: The National Hockey League is formed, with the Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, Ottawa Senators, Quebec Bulldogs and Toronto Arenas as its first teams.
Today's Featured Birthday
Actress Kristin Bauer van Straten (47)
Daily Quote
"It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them." — Alfred Adler


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Today in the news: 'Dear Abby' writer dies
News to know
Pauline Phillips, writer of the "Dear Abby" advice column, has died at 94, according to the Associated Press. Her publicist said her death came after a long battle with Alzheimer's. The "Dear Abby" column has been written since 2002 by her daughter, Jeanne. The two had shared a byline since 2000. Phillips was the twin sister of "Ask Ann Landers" columnist, and competitor, Eppie Lederer. While competition between the two advice columns led to tension early in their careers, the two had reconciled before Lederer's death in 2002.
Quote of note
"We believe that it would be wrong if we walk out of this spring with no achievement on debt reduction whatsoever. We think the worst thing for the economy is to move past these events that are occurring with no progress made on the debt and the deficit." - House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, on the House Republicans' plans for the next session of Congress.
Hot video: White House condemns Algerian hostage taking
GateHouse News Service


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Rachid Ghannouchi is returning to Tunisia after a brief tour of Washington DC. The leader of the Ennahdha Party, the moderate Islamic party that won 41% of the vote in the country's first open election in its history, Ghannouchi probably went to the U.S. for two reasons – to calm Congressional fears in Washington that Ennahdha is little more than Al Qaeda with a makeup job, and to solicit investment possibilities. From the press reports coming out of the U.S. that I am reading here in Tunisia, it seemed his visit was successful from the public relations view point at least.
Le Bandit
45 years ago when I lived in Tunisia as a Peace Corps volunteer and staff member, it was rare that people would talk about politics or openly criticize the government. "How's your family? How's your health? What do you think of the weather" and other non- subjects were the focus of conversation. But the country is living in another political age today. Less than a year after Ben Ali fled the country with as much of the nation's treasury he could carry on his plane, the country, finally liberated from fear, seems to talk nothing but politics. It is on nearly everyone's mind…and tongue.What has been most striking is the utter contempt that has been expressed to me – now a week in Tunisia – towards the country's deposed president Zine Ben Ali and his wife Leila Trabelsi. Ben Ali is known to have had two favorite hobbies during his presidency: playing with his grandson and torturing people. A few examples of how his former countrymen evaluate his 25 years in power will suffice. An elderly man at a train station engages me in conversation without my soliciting the exchange. Refusing to stoop to even mentioning Ben Ali's name, he speaks of the country getting rid of "le bandit." A cab driver, an admirer of the country's first president, Habib Bourguiba, speaks of Ben Ali in harsher terms, calling him a fascist, un salaud' (that translates in English to something approaching a scumbag).
No doubt the system of repression that existed under Ben Ali is at the root of this pervasive contempt for the former president. With a state security force of 250,000 given a free hand and encouraged to torture, intimidate and break the spirit of anyone questioning his authority, Ben Ali ruled with an iron hand. He himself was trained for the job in the U.S. (Baltimore) and France. No one of the many people I have spoken to has one good word to say about him. Yet despite being aware of Ben Ali's record, five American presidents – Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, and until the last moment Barack Obama – supported the dictator as a "moderate" and important ally in Washington's "war on terrorism."
This past Wednesday a Tunisian court found Abdullah Khallal and Mohamed Ali Ganzoui – the former a Minister of the Interior under Ben Ali – guilty of having promoted and practiced torture and government blackmail . The specific case involved the torture of 17 former Tunisian military officers unjustly accused of plotting a military coup against Ben Ali; they were arrested, savagely tortured and imprisoned. The two were sentence to – five years in prison – minus time served. The court also ruled that the accused pay considerable but undefined restitution payments to the victims.
A very light sentence given the extent of the repression used against the Tunisian people during the Ben Ali years! Consider only a part of the data relating to Ben Ali's attempt to suppress the Islamic Ennahdha Party; it gives a suggestion of the scope of the repression. According to several sources, over the course of the Ben Ali years, some 30,000 supporters of Ennahdha would serve prison terms, another 30,000 would be placed under "administrative detention" forced to report twice or thrice daily to the police. 20,000 were purged from jobs, 4,000 went into exile, 105 were assassinated with another 30 having simply "disappeared."
It is as if Ben Ali were competing for something akin to an anti-Nobel prize and he is right up there in the running with the worst of them: the Guatemalan dictators, Pinochet, Mobutu and that great cast of right wing dictators the United States has supported – whether it be in defense of the war on Communism or the war against terrorism – for decades.The case of Abed Moneen Ben Chabaane, an Ennahdha activist, illustrated the nature of Ben Ali's repressive machine as well as any. Arrested, imprisoned and tortured because of his work as an organizer for the Islamic university student organization, Ben Chabane is one of the more fortunate ones. He survived. Many of his friends and comrades in arms did not.
From Amilcar to Le Cram
To this day, the Arish Ben Chabaane clan to which Moneen belongs has properties "from Amilcar to Le Cram" – two suburbs north of Tunis. There they prospered for several hundred years, raising crops and engaged in dairy farming. Interviewed yesterday in Amilcar, Moneen told how at harvest time, he would watch his grandfather slaughter a cow and distribute to meat to the needy people of the district. The family would also give away milk to the poor rather than sell it because they thought that the right, Islamic thing to do. While still influential family to this day, their family farming business took a hit in the 1950s, just after independence, when then President Bourguiba put an end to their dairy activities on the pretext that foreign tourists would be offended by the sight of the Ben Chabanne cows and sheep.
Whatever influence the family clan possessed was not enough to save Ben Chabaane from Ben Ali's jails. On September 10, 1992 – the day of the prophet Mohammed's birthday, le mouled – at a café in Sidi Bou Said on the Ave de la President Habib Bourguiba, Ben Chabaane was sitting drinking coffee and chatting with a group of friends. In short order several police cars pulled up, surrounded the place and arrested him. He would spend the next month and 29 days in a jail cell at the Ministry of Interior in Tunis and the next 11 years in Ben Ali's prisons.
Ennahdha's Election Victory: in Part a Sympathy Vote
It has been acknowledged that the victory that Ennahdha won in Tunisia's October 23 elections for the Constituent Assembly was, for many Tunisians, a result of a sympathy vote for the party that was easily the target of Ben Ali's most vicious and sustained repression. There was also a deep desire among those who went to the polls to "return to normalcy." After Ben Ali's hasty exit from Tunisia with as much of the country's national treasure as he could haul away, it was a network of political prisoners – hardened and disciplined by their time behind bars – in concert with their families, which provided Ennahdha with the organizational backbone for its re-emergence and stunning victory at the polls.
Was Ennahdha exaggerating the hardships it had endured, or "playing the victim"? From what can be gleaned from various sources here in Tunisia, Ennahdha's suffering under Ben Ali was not at all overstated. The former dictator conducted nothing short of a campaign of annihilation against the party. He personally oversaw much of the worst repression personally. Ben Ali was obsessed with Ennahdha and went to all necessary extremes to crush it. That it survived and now is flourishing can only be explained by its connection to and sympathy from broad sectors of the country's population.
The repression took many forms – arbitrary arrest, exacting signed confessions through torture, disappearances of political activists and critics, threatening and intimidating the families and friends of political prisoners, purging Ennahdha supporters from jobs – all the now familiar and well-worn methods of dictators everywhere. That either the United States or France were unaware of the scope and brutality of the repression is not credible. Whatever Nicolas Sarkozy or Barak Obama might now be saying, praising Tunisia's role in starting the Arab Spring, these leaders and their governments did not lift a finger to press Ben Ali when it might have helped. They spoke of him as a "moderate" and praised his role in supporting them in their war on terrorism. Their current praise of Tunisian democracy rings hollow.
Torture With a Cat
During the nearly two months spent in the basement of the Ministry of the Interior in 1992 Ben Chebaane was repeatedly tortured. A young university student in his early 20s he was the subject of Abu Ghraib-like tortures, eerily resembling those inflicted upon Iraqis by the U.S. military occupation forces a decade or so later. He described several.
Besides repeated beatings I will only describe one of the more common forms. Among the more demented creative forms of humiliation to which political prisoners were subjected involved a cat. First forced to strip nude in front of fellow prisoners and guards, a prisoner had to then put on a pair of baggy pants the bottoms of which were tied closed at his ankles. Then the cat placed in his baggy pants and while there beaten with a stick. Programmed to panic, in its panic and inability to escape, the cat would scratch and tear at a prisoner's stomach and scrotum.
Repeatedly and savagely beaten, himself, Ben Chebaane was forced to sign a confession that he had a bomb-making factory in his home, although the ingredients were never found. Instead the authorities confiscated a bag of sand and a bottle of cough medicine – material from which it is rather difficult to make bombs.
The bomb-making scenario was key to the prosecution, and to convincing the press and the international media that Ben Chabaane and his colleagues were not being arrested for their political views, but because they were terrorists. This was especially important as at the time, the European Commission was already putting pressure on Ben Ali for him to set free the imprisoned Islamists, whom the Europeans understood, had nothing to do with radical Islamic extremism. But Ben Ali would have none of this. Raising the specter of an Islamic radical movement like that which had emerged in Algeria, he was able to fend off the pressure and continue what was a merciless crackdown of the Islamic movement in Tunisia.
The extent of the torture was such that Ben Chabaane admits he would have signed anything put before him. "If I was told to sign a document that I would kill my father, I would have signed it."
Transferred to Tunis' main prison (since demolished), he had to wait another four years before he was finally brought to trial. Charged with having explosives in his possession, he denied his guilt. But the judge waved Ben Chabaane's signed confession before his face and, he sentenced him to 11 years in prison. Having already served four of them waiting for trial, he spent the next seven being transferred from one prison to another throughout Tunisia – seven in all. Most of them were far from Tunis and his extended family.
All that because he was anopen supporter and political activist for Ennahda. He had committed no crime, to act of violence against persons or property. "That is not our way," he told me.
In prison, the humiliation only continued. While life for anyone in a Tunisian prison is not easy, for Ennadha supporters it was that much harder. They were denied many privileges permitted others, the right to read newspapers, watch TV. Reading the Koran was banned as was any manifestation of prayer. It's the kind of treatment that breaks the soul and spirit of many – which is exactly what it is meant to do. But many of those who survived the mental and physical torture became hardened political activists and would take the survival and organizational skills honed in Tunisia's prisons out into society at large once released.
Call it the school of hard knocks! … Very hard knocks.
Rob Prince is a Lecturer of International Studies at the University of Denver's Korbel School of International Studies and publisher of the Colorado Progressive Jewish News.


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